Warning: FAR too much information, explicit language and full-on emotion in this post. In fact, you probably don't want to read it.

OK, maybe I'm innocent or complacent or something but this was pretty much the one thing I didn't think could happen to us.

Among my recent round of blood tests (nine and counting) I had a couple of vaginal swabs. I had the same ones done before when I thought I had a vaginal infection and they both came back negative. No big surprise. But now one of them has come back positive.

The C word.

That's right, chlamydia. Now I already know it's not very good for my tubes, and I also know it's sexually transmitted.

Which brings us to a slight problem. Before meeting Mr Spouse, and I know this is going to beggar belief, neither of us had had intercourse (defined as: what W. Clinton thinks is sex) with anyone. We had both fooled around, and this wasn't a secret, and I know (at least, I know now - I didn't know in my 20s and early 30s when I was doing this fooling around) that oral sex can transmit chlamydia. So it is of course possible that one or other of us caught it (he has also confessed to some fooling around). I trust him that he had not had intercourse before and I also completely trust him that he is faithful. Might as well give up now if I don't, to be frank.

Okay, so it's possible for either of us to have caught it (should have listened to those youth leaders, shouldn't we? the ones that told us we should stick to holding hands), but given that before we got together I had been single for over two years, and him for at least a year, it looks like we've been passing it between ourselves for about five years. Not good for my pelvis, I don't think.

My reasons for not having that sort of sex with previous blokes have mainly been that I didn't feel that committed to them. My reason for ultimately going ahead with Mr Spouse was the same: finally someone I felt sufficiently committed to that, for example, if I did get pregnant (Ha!) it would not be a disaster. I'm probably an extreme case, but I think I have a similar decision-making process to a lot of women when it comes to sex, it's just mine has been coloured by an early and quite lengthy brush with fairly conservative Christianity, followed by years of very occasional, very brief relationships. If I had taken seriously the horror stories those youth workers told us, would I have done differently? I don't know. I might have. I might have asked to be tested for STDs after a couple of those relationships. I doubt it, though.

There is a small possibility it's a false positive though the consultant said it's less likely than my previous swab being a false negative. I imagine they'll treat both of us even if we both test negative again. So I also imagine we'll never know.

So, how does a former-nice-Christian-girl react when told she probably has an STD? One that might be the cause of infertility? Well, let's just say I'm feeling a little fragile and emotional, and a few swear words were uttered. Also something I don't normally do.

Later: I've just had a very satisfying thought. Perhaps I can get the clinic to ring up one, in particular, of my exes? The smug one who has two kids with a part-time primary school teacher, who left me to go back to his ex who, at the time, was pregnant with someone else's child??